Mustang Field, four miles south of El Reno, Oklahoma. The year is 1943. Young men are learning to fly the Fairchild PT-19 — open cockpit, wood-winged, beautiful and demanding — over the flat prairie of Canadian County.They didn’t just materialize. Somebody had to get them there. And this, it turns out, is one of the most fascinating stories we get to tell here at The Caldwell Collection.

But that wasn't my last encounter with Marla or her biplane. The very next year, sitting in my hotel room, bored, in advance of a business meeting, I was scrolling through the Barnstormer ads when her name jumped off the page. The UPF 7 was for sale again!

My first Waco, a UMF 3, was restored by the amazing craftsman Dave Allen from Coronado, California. I've written about him here before. There was another amazing restorer who, though much better known in the Waco community and antique aviation in general, always referred to himself as the "other" Dave Allen.

If I go back to the beginning of all of this, I just wanted to be able to put one airplane with big wheels on grass...